Azog-Thoth@cup.portal.com (William Thomas Daugustine) (04/13/90)
Ill soon be reciving a DEC Pro-350 machine as part of a trade deal, and want to get a general idea of some things so I wont be totally lost when I do finally get it! My friend, who is trading the Pro-350 with me, says that its basiclly a PDP-11 in a different box (excluding certian things, such as tape drives?). If this is true, will I be able to run PDP-11 software on it? Right now, the machine is running Venix. A version of Unix? How close is it? Muli-user and -processing? He has other OS's for it, which Ill be getting, one is RT-11, and the other is POS (Professional OS). Im not familiar with RT-11, altho I do know that this is one of the OS's of the PDP-11 family. What is POS? Also, it has a 5meg hard drive (ST-506). Can I upgrade this to a larger drive? The ST-225 etc, are ST-506 compatable, but will it be able to support larger drives? And finally, not a big concern. He mentioned hi-res graphics. Just for comparasion sakes (no flames on this please!) which would iut be closer to? CGA, EGA or VGA? Many thanx on any info you can give me. Other such things that I havent listed here (tape drives, RAM, comm ports) will help Billy D'Augustine Azog-Thoth@cup.portal.com
minow@mountn.dec.com (Martin Minow) (04/13/90)
In article <28842@cup.portal.com> Azog-Thoth@cup.portal.com (William Thomas Daugustine) asks about the PRO-350. Here are a few, highly unofficial, answers. > >My friend, who is trading the Pro-350 with me, says that its basiclly >a PDP-11 in a different box (excluding certian things, such as tape >drives?). If this is true, will I be able to run PDP-11 software on >it? Basically TRUE. It has a private bus (not a Q- or Unibus) so there are only a few cards available (Ethernet, serial line, telephone, and one or two others). >Right now, the machine is running Venix. A version of Unix? How close >is it? > Muli-user and -processing? More or less a Unix V6 clone. Don't expect sockets or NFS, but it should be reasonably familiar. I'm pretty sure you can use the second terminal line as a programmer's terminal. >He has other OS's for it, which Ill >be getting, one is RT-11, and the other is POS (Professional OS). Im >not familiar with RT-11, altho I do know that this is one of the OS's >of the PDP-11 family. What is POS? RT-11 is a small single-user executive. It is the spiritual grandparent of CP/M and MS/DOS, and the children are not necessarily improvements over the parent. Think of it as a small, fast, single-user system. P/OS is a variant of RSX-11M for the Pro. This is a multi-task system that is very compatible with the RSX-11M that runs on PDP-11's and VMS compatibility mode. Executables *generally* transfer without problems, but there are a few quirks with user id's and file name conventions that might cause a headache or two. If you can find Decus C, you'll have access to a language that is compatible between the PRO and the -11's. >Also, it has a 5meg hard drive (ST-506). Can I upgrade this to a >larger drive? The ST-225 etc, are ST-506 compatable, but will >it be able to support larger drives? I think the PRO will support a 10 Meg drive. Look around the surplus market. >And finally, not a big concern. He mentioned hi-res graphics. Just >for comparasion sakes (no flames on this please!) which would iut >be closer to? CGA, EGA or VGA? There are high-quality color and monochrome displays. The operating system has a fairly complete set of graphics operations. It's been six years, so you'll excuse me if I don't remember how they work any more. Martin Minow minow@thundr.enet.dec.com The above does not represent the position of Digital Equipment Corporation